Mapping Ancient Sands: Dylan Morton on Mid Con Geology

Peter Brecht00:02

All right, welcome to Local Energy. My name is Peter Brecht. I'm here with my co-host, Wade Spear, and I'm so excited today. We're talking to Dylan Morton at MidCon Energy. I normally spend hours and hours and hours before interviews, Dylan, to figure out what we're gonna talk about. But when you and I got on our pre-game call, was like, oh, this is just gonna be a natural fun conversation. So it's snowing in Oklahoma.

I know that from both you and Wade now, so bring us up to speed and what's new and exciting in your world.

Wade00:30

Yeah.

Dylan Morton00:34

Yeah, well, the snow has been pretty cool. We typically don't get a lot of snow here in Oklahoma. Think Wade can speak to that as well. But I think where I live here in Southeastern Tulsa, we got about 10 inches, 9, 10 inches. So that was fun. So yeah, I'm currently at home. But yeah, been enjoying that being home, with the wife and the baby.

Wade00:42

Right.

Peter Brecht00:51

Wow.

Peter Brecht01:01

That's a great time to, I don't know, just being a dad and being present, like you have no other choice, right? Outside of maybe doing some work here and there. So what are you doing these days? Tell us a little bit about your role, where you're working. Maybe probably a better place to start would be your background. What got you into oil and gas and then we'll get to the current.

Dylan Morton01:09

Yeah, for sure.

Dylan Morton01:20

Yeah, so I know we kind of talked about it on our intro call, but I've kind of done a lot of different things. I started out at Oklahoma State University. I wasn't studying geology at first. I'm a geologist. And so I was studying marketing and I honestly just was so bored with it. I think what got me interested in geology was

I, as a business major, you have to take like one science credit or something. So I got put into geology and I went to that class and kind of fell in love with it. And I was like, you know what, I find this more interesting than what I'm currently doing. Being early on in college, most people don't really know what they want to do. So I was like, I'll give this a try, switched over, kind of focused on petroleum.

And did some undergrad geochemistry research where I looked at stable isotopes and the weather patterns and how they affect different weather patterns, which was really interesting, and kind of tracing what water vapor comes from where and presented that to a couple different conferences. And by the time I got done with my undergrad, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I kind of wanted to go into environmental

Wasn't really thinking a whole lot about petroleum. Ended up getting a job in Oklahoma City at a place called Reagan Smith. At the time it was Energy Solutions, now it's just Reagan Smith. But a lot of people know them. They are an environmental and regulatory consulting firm and they really focus on BIA and BLM type lands. And so I was primarily working projects in Oklahoma and Wyoming prior

Primarily the Powder River. And I was doing all kinds of things, submitting APDs. We helped Panther Energy, Wade, might know, remember those guys here in Tulsa, we helped them submit like 600 APDs up in the Powder River when the lease and land grab was going on up there. So if you submitted a permit and then you kind of held it, I think, at the time, I didn't really fully understand it. I just knew I was doing a lot of work for them.

Dylan Morton03:40

And so I did that. I mean, we did so burying beetle surveys for endangered species and all kinds of different surveys around Oklahoma and went out to West Texas a few times in Mexico on field trips out there doing all kinds of site security diagrams. And at one point I was even doing, this is probably the most interesting thing I did there. I was doing

Wade03:51

I hope.

Peter Brecht03:54

Hmm.

Dylan Morton04:10

Ground Centering Radar Surveys, GPR for short. So I kind of focused on some geophysics in undergrad and kind of had a good handle of GPR. And so we were doing GPR surveys to delineate unmarked burial graves in old Indian graveyards. Yeah, so, and at the time I was kind of joking, it was like, if I get this wrong, if this...

Peter Brecht04:29

Wow.

Wade04:29

Really?

Dylan Morton04:37

If I get this, marking wrong, I'm going to be haunted forever. But no, it was a really interesting job. I did a lot of things. Got to view the oil and gas industry through the regulatory and environmental spectrum, which is way deeper than I ever thought, being a geologist. So after, we came up to 2020, I was still working there, just had my bachelor's and

Wade04:41

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht04:42

You

Dylan Morton05:06

Everyone knows what happened in 2020. COVID happened and then I hung around until like August. We got really, really slow. Weren't submitting, permits or that was kind of our bread and butter at the time. Made it our most most of the money was coming in. So I got furloughed and decided to go. You couldn't really get a job anywhere at the time, so I was like, I'm really interested in doing oil and gas.

Met my now wife, girlfriend at the time. She was the geologist that I met at OSU and undergrad. And her dad is actually a geologist, worked at Chesapeake and a lot of other places, really good oil and gas geologists. And I kind of was like, you know what, maybe I want to do oil and gas. There's more money in it. It seems pretty cool. And so I went back and got my master's at Oklahoma State and studied under really prolific professor

Called Jim Puckett and he knows, mid-con geology like the back of his hand and in other places as well, really good professor. So I got my, I focused on petroleum geology and for, it's interesting, geologists do a master's and a thesis based, right? So you write a thesis and a lot of masters are, coursework based, kind of like a

An undergrad, but for what I did was thesis based. So was working on this 200 page thesis, the two years I was doing it, compiling research, working in different software. And so I was looking at

Peter Brecht06:49

What was the topic of your thesis? Was your... Okay.

Dylan Morton06:52

Yeah, I was about to get into that. So it was the Tritle Thercon here, canology. So basically I was looking at the Cottage Grove Sandstone, which is a pretty prolific reservoir here in the Antedarko Basin. And I was looking at kind of right now where the Western Antedarko Basin, where all the Cherokee Shales is taken off right now. I was kind of looking in that area. That was my focus area.

And so I was like, the question is with your tribal zircons is where these sediments that form this formation come from and how did they get there? And through that, can kind of, it kind of helps you with exploration, right? Cause I've always been told, that fan came from somewhere and it's going somewhere. Just like any kind of, sandstone trend or play fair way. I mean, you can find deposits in there that where you can drill and, you know,

They can be economic. I use the Tritle zircons, you you use those zircons and you date them and they tell you, environment, where they came from, essentially. So I mapped and found out that, some of these grains for the sandstone came as far as the Northern Appalachians and they kind of came down through, the Illinois basin, those basins on the way down.

Some were deposited in the Awashita Basin, which was then uplifted into the Awashita Uplift and then further eroded into the Anadarko Basin. I mean, geology is just really cool in my mind. So that was what I focused on and I kind of incorporated into that some reservoir characterization type stuff to help with the petroleum back to that end. But there's a lot of things you can do with...

Peter Brecht08:43

Okay.

Dylan Morton08:49

You always hear like source the sink, for different formations and it does matter. It can help you delineate plays and find more productive wells. And actually, I don't know if you guys saw the post. I had a post on collide where I kind of spun in my thesis work into some really good wells that are being drilled out in Roger Mills County right now in the Tonka Vaughan Cottage Grove. One of them.

The Tonka wall is being drilled by Sanguine and the cottage grove is being drilled by Charter Oak Sanguine is here in Tulsa. So I kind of tried to factor in and show you know maybe the different grains maybe the facies that are involved in these are a better facies which is why they're seeing these really good results. So yeah.

Peter Brecht09:37

I have, you've just such a, you gave us a lot to go off of there, but like my, question that I, like you know when someone says something and you can't stop thinking about that one thing the whole time they're talking? Okay, you go from marketing, okay, and I got a marketing degree, so I can agree with you. Completely worthless, completely worthless. The only good part about college for me was I got to keep being an athlete. I met my wife.

Dylan Morton09:53

Hahaha.

Yeah.

Peter Brecht10:03

And I took some statistics courses. So the stats was great. Other than that, worthless piece of paper. But you go from marketing and then you like overnight, you like go into a whole different, like it's a whole different direction. Like I don't think many marketing majors sitting there thinking like, I'm going to go, pick up rocks and become a geologist. So I like that transition, but like what made you want to go into marketing in the first place? And is there like,

Dylan Morton10:06

Yeah?

Peter Brecht10:30

Any skill set from that that you're now implementing in your daily life? Because it's, you wouldn't think of doing it if unless there was like some part of you that was like, like marketing, I like talking to people like, so maybe how do those worlds collide now for you?

Dylan Morton10:43

Yeah, so I'm from Fairview, Oklahoma, real small town in northwest Oklahoma, like 3000 people. My mom runs a convenience store slash restaurant. I mean, it's all the above out there, but so I worked there all through, at the time, you could start working at like 14 and I had a motorcycle, so I would ride my motorcycle to work. So I worked there forever. So I dealt with people all day. I was really

Wade10:48

Mm-hmm.

Dylan Morton11:13

Kind of a people person, because my mom was, right? I mean, she had worked there a long time. And so I was, and I liked all the, you you would see all the marketing for different products. And I'm like I can get a job anywhere with a marketing degree, you think, any kind of business. And so was like, that'll open up so many doors. And I enjoy it. I thought I did, but really it was early on in college.

I mean, like the first or second semester when I switched. So I didn't really get deep into the marketing classes and coursework. But that's where I started was working at that store. I was kind of entrepreneurial when I was young. I started a milling business when I was 13. I just like people. I like dealing with people. So that's kind of where it started.

Peter Brecht12:00

Gotcha and today I think you're pretty involved in like all kinds of different groups and I mean you're you're you're not I think one thing that stood out to me when we were talking is I don't meet a lot of people that are obviously I'm searching for people to come on to the podcast, right? But it was like we connected and it was kind of like man like this guy's you're outgoing You're trying to talk to people you're trying to get in different places and have conversations about different things so I just thought that was really cool, but

Another thing that you mentioned too that I just want to like, got to ask and then I'll turn it over to Wade or we can keep talking. But you studied like, you said you mentioned something about like rain and how the weather and all that stuff. Right. And I think you mentioned, so I'm curious, like there's those companies now that are like doing like the

Dylan Morton12:42

Yeah.

Peter Brecht12:49

They're seeding or they're looking for, I think one's called Rainmaker, right? They're trying to like figure out how to make it rain in different parts. Did you get in any of that? I've always been, I always wanted to talk about that subject, but I've never found anyone yet, but are you familiar with any of that or?

Dylan Morton13:00

Yeah, I'm familiar. I've heard of it. Definitely heard of it because it's pretty hot topic. I know so we were looking so we would we had precipitation samples and we would measure the stable isotopes in with the ICPM machine. And we would say the different level of isotopes would tell us something about where that precipitation originated. And a lot of it came from the Gulf Coast area, which makes

Peter Brecht13:04

Yeah.

Peter Brecht13:28

Okay, got it.

Dylan Morton13:29

No, we didn't really get into the rain making or anything, which is interesting though. That would be interesting to see.

Peter Brecht13:36

Yeah, for me, my sister's kind of a conspiracy theorist. So like I get those Instagram messages of like, like it's constant. Right. I know. And Wade, Wade's like, OK, another one. No, like but like she sends me stuff and I'm like, well, I don't she's going to kill me if she ever heard this podcast and she never listens. But she's my younger she's my sister. That's like just younger than me. I've got five younger siblings, but she's like just

Dylan Morton13:41

Haha

Wade13:41

I was gonna say you've really been following some rabbit holes, Peter.

Wade13:49

Hey, I read the same things. I just don't go as deep into them, you know.

Laughter

Dylan Morton14:00

Okay.

Peter Brecht14:06

And she's like, she's the most conspiracy theorist person. So she's always like, there's, like look at these Ken trails and like they're see, and I'm like, all right, I gotta get some real data, but I haven't been able to find it yet. So anyways, back to oil and gas, back to the regularly scheduled programming. We'll stop talking about the atmosphere here, but.

Dylan Morton14:12

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dylan Morton14:18

Yeah.

Wade14:23

I had a question. It seems like with your path, you graduated school and then kind of saw a slowdown in activity and stuff and then went back to get your masters. And it seems like a lot of geologists I know have master's degrees. Either they were in school and graduated and the industry was, the market was rough for getting jobs. And so they kind of went back to school for a couple of years. Do you think that that, is that kind of standard now or where do you see that going?

Dylan Morton14:52

Yes and no, Wade. I think it really depends on the market. Is there such a need that you can get out? Because I have a friend that's the same age as me, and he got out with a bachelor's. He worked for BRG for six years, and now he's down in Tyler, Texas. But while he was doing his bachelor's, he was doing well-site biology, and he was just a really overachiever. For the most part, I've seen

Wade15:13

Okay.

Dylan Morton15:23

Kids my age, I'm talking about people my age, not, can't call them kids because I'm not a kid, but typically they go right into the master, they want to get it done, because they have their eyes set on that petroleum job and you have to have it now. I mean, you've had to have it for quite a while now. But like, and I know people that are probably, a little bit older than me, more your guys' age where they did

Wade15:25

Mm-hmm.

Wade15:32

Right. Right.

Wade15:40

Breathing.

I guess.

Dylan Morton15:51

Their bachelor's and they got out and started working because they could. And then they came back and got their master's, like you're saying, later on. So yeah, but now I kind of see it as being, one right after another. I mean, typically. Especially if you want petroleum.

Wade15:55

Right.

I guess.

Wade16:08

Gotcha, yeah, the reason why that, I was gonna say that question came up because whenever I first started working in field like 2006 to 2010, for the most part, it was just growing, growing, growing, and it didn't feel like it was necessary. But since then, it's kind of felt like that's maybe shifted a little bit, and it's a competitive advantage to be able to land a job. And so I didn't know if you felt like that was still the case or not, but it sounds like it definitely is. The other question I was gonna ask is in terms of like,

Dylan Morton16:35

Yeah.

Wade16:38

Your day-to-day like what are you really focused on right now? I is it more exploration? It maybe scanning for uphold potential? Where does that kind of fall?

Dylan Morton16:48

It's primarily mid time does water floods, conventional, water flood assets. So it's a lot of exploitation, optimizing our current water floods. And we do a lot of deal assessment. I mean, we looked at a huge deal last year, way bigger than our company. I mean, it was in the ballpark at two hundred fifteen, three hundred million dollars. So we and we, we are we just got outbid on it. But so it's.

Wade16:52

Okay.

Wade17:11

Gotcha.

Dylan Morton17:17

We evaluate deals all the time and then we have some big floods up in the powder and here in Oklahoma. So I'm the only geologist right now at MIGCON. So lots of optimization of water floods and also looking for different off unit drilling opportunities or infill wells, conversions, all the above, up-hole stuff.

Wade17:42

Right.

Dylan Morton17:46

Of if you have a well that has a casing leak or something, you have a lookup hole and stuff. But yeah, that's kind what I mainly focus on. We operate some horizontal wells, but we don't typically drill horizontal wells. We're mid-con, mainly conventional water flood assets for the most part.

Wade17:51

Right. Okay.

Wade18:03

I got you.

Wade18:10

So on stuff like that, you guys take them over after the drilling completion is completed. Is that kind of the agreement you got when you say that you're operating horizontal wells?

Peter Brecht18:12

Hmph.

Dylan Morton18:21

Well, we bought an asset that had five or six horizontal wells in it. We bought an asset in 2023 here in Oklahoma. It's the marshand field, the marshand. And I've been studying the marshand for the past two to three years. So anything you want to know about the marshand, I'm your guy. Yeah, so I have a lot of ideas there.

Wade18:24

Okay.

Wade18:28

I guess.

Wade18:32

Okay.

Dylan Morton18:50

I don't know they make con was public at one point, which is I told you this in our intro call. I mean, they were actually public at one point. They were huge company and we're just small right now. So like I said, we looked at we tried to buy my last year that was ginormous and we closed on one in 2023. It's just been got to find the right deal, right? That's the hardest. That's the hardest part is finding a good deal, making it work and making everyone happy.

Wade19:00

Right.

Wade19:11

Okay.

Dylan Morton19:20

But yeah, I enjoy what I do. Water floods require a lot of technical assessment. It's not like the Woodford or something out in the Arcoma where you're just basically a drilling factory. So I enjoy that. And by background, I haven't worked a ton of horizontals.

Wade19:29

Right.

Wade19:38

Mm-hmm.

Dylan Morton19:47

On my masters, I studied the foundational geology, well log analysis, all the foundations in petroleum geology that set you up for success. And then I went and did an internship at Denberry and they're a CO2 EOR company. So I've done a lot of EOR, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And I enjoy it, but I do understand the horizontal stuff and the horizontal plays. And so.

Wade20:00

Okay.

Right.

I got you.

Dylan Morton20:13

You try to be a well-rounded geologist, right? Everyone tries to be that in their job. You can't file yourself into one little thing, but I enjoy it all.

Wade20:16

Right.

Wade20:22

That's awesome. That's great.

Peter Brecht20:23

You've traveled a lot of places and gone to a lot of bases and things like that, but if you couldn't live in Oklahoma where you're at now, where would you go?

Dylan Morton20:34

That's a good question. Are you saying like if it's is it dependent on if I can get a job in oil and gas or not? OK, I think.

Peter Brecht20:41

No, yeah, I'd say, we'd all live in Hawaii, think, or, something like that, right? But yeah. Yeah.

Wade20:43

Yeah, would you rather go to Midland or would you rather go to Houston or?

Dylan Morton20:46

Yeah.

Oh, Midland 100%. No, Eddy County, New Mexico. No. I think I mentioned this a little bit on our pre-call as well. You said that you were from California. My wife would love to be in California. And I mean, who doesn't like California, right? I mean, it's beautiful in terms of the scenery, the weather. You could talk about politics and everything else another time, but...

Wade20:55

Now we-

Peter Brecht21:01

Yeah.

Peter Brecht21:05

Yeah.

Peter Brecht21:11

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Wade21:11

Right.

Dylan Morton21:19

And we really we were in Plano, actually Frisco when we were when I was at Denberry and we loved it down there. I mean, you're disconnected from Dallas by 3040 minutes, although you know everything's growing that way. As big cities do Dallas is going to be touching Oklahoma before too long, but I'd say Calif, you know. To make my wife happy, California and I enjoyed California.

Wade21:34

Yeah, it's starting to absorb it.

Peter Brecht21:41

Yeah.

Dylan Morton21:48

And maybe Frisco would be kind of my top priority.

Peter Brecht21:54

Yeah, I think the only reason I'm still in California is because of my wife and, family, obviously, but if it's like the amount of times I'm traveling or doing things now, it's like, all right. And obviously, Zoom is great. Like we can do Zoom calls all day long or I can, you we can talk to people on the phone, which is awesome. But to me, nothing beats going and visiting people in person. So like, I don't know, maybe it's.

Dylan Morton21:59

Okay.

Dylan Morton22:10

Yeah.

Peter Brecht22:17

Maybe it's the fact that COVID happened and then it's like the whole world kind of, but I'm like, think I'm anxious to get out there and actually talk to people in real life again. Like I'll be, I think three, I've got like three weeks I won't be here, like just in the next couple of weeks, it's like, it's just busy. Midland is one of those trips, which I'm excited for, believe it or not. So it's good.

Dylan Morton22:26

No, I get that.

Dylan Morton22:38

Haha

Peter Brecht22:44

Yeah, so California, think about that. Oil and gas is probably not ideal out here, but have you been watching Landman at all? That's my next question, because here's my problem with Landman, and I'm just gonna say it. My wife, watched it. We didn't watch it, okay? I'm like, I'm not watching it. I have nothing to do with it. We watch it, and then we get to the end of it, and she's like, what are we gonna do now? And I'm like, I don't know.

Dylan Morton22:51

Yeah.

Peter Brecht23:12

Go back to reading books. I don't know, like I got work to do. Like we can go do things, whatever. And she's like, no, like I've just been fun. Like hanging out with you, watching a show. She's like, let's watch it again. And I'm like, my gosh. So I'm kid you not, like we restarted. It's not that, no, it's not, but she's like, but she's like, I like it. Cause like, I get to sit here and ask you questions. She's like, I'm to ask you questions about things now. And she's like, it's so.

Dylan Morton23:14

Yeah.

Wade23:22

Wow, is there that much to like really digest?

Wade23:29

It's not that deep, all right.

Wade23:33

Okay.

Peter Brecht23:36

So like, she's like, so is that, is that what you call a pump jack? And I'm like, yeah, that's a pump jack. And I'm teaching, she's like, and they mentioned a top drive in one of the bits. And so like, I'm showing her, okay, like that's a top drive. I'm pulling out the diagram and she's like, all right, like I'm like teaching my wife oil and gas stuff now. So great opportunity there, but I want to get your thoughts on it. Have you even watched it? I guess let's start there. Okay. All right.

Dylan Morton23:41

Yeah.

Dylan Morton23:56

A few episodes I have not. We haven't been watching a ton of TV lately, but I've seen a few episodes and the episodes I didn't see I liked it. I really did. But yeah, not a ton.

Peter Brecht24:03

Right, smart, it's good for ya.

Peter Brecht24:09

Yeah, yeah. Okay, fair enough. I think it feels like for me, not that I don't work in the, I'm not an oil field guy, like I don't ever want to portray myself as being that, but I talk about this stuff all day long, right? So it kind of feels like you can never escape it, right? It's like, okay, now my team, even my entertainment is related to it. And that's just, it's interesting, but good stuff for the industry, I think.

Dylan Morton24:25

Yeah.

Wade24:32

It's drawing you in,

Dylan Morton24:32

You

I agree. I think it is good for the industry. Wade, have you watched it?

Wade24:35

It's pulling you close so it can break your heart. No, I have not. I have not. No.

Peter Brecht24:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but he's seen all these other movies.

Dylan Morton24:44

Okay.

Wade24:46

You know it.

Wade24:50

Yeah, yep, yep. I wouldn't know, but.

Dylan Morton24:51

Yeah, Wade's like I'm living it every day.

Peter Brecht24:54

Yeah, it's a it's He sees a lot like Wade's a movie guy though Like don't get me wrong like Wade Wade's got like every movie that Wade is seen like I have we have a running list now of like movies that Peter has to watch because I don't watch movies and so you know like Yeah, and I'm like and I guess I was sheltered or I don't know. I just I'm not a I'm not really an enter. I'm like kind of

Wade25:02

Yeah.

Dylan Morton25:08

Okay. I have friends like that too.

Peter Brecht25:18

I like to do things like I want to go build websites or go now clod codes out like I'm just like all these things I'm like I like to play and learn but there's some good movies that Wade's recommended and I'm like man that was alright I can see why that's a good movie so Sicario's next on my list Wade I might have to watch that

Wade25:23

Yeah.

Wade25:29

Man.

Dylan Morton25:30

Yeah.

Wade25:32

The other night I went to dinner with a group of engineers. Okay, that's definitely on the list right there. The other night I went to dinner with a bunch of engineers and one of the guys that I was talking to, we almost had the exact same taste in movies. I mean, it was Interstellar, Sicario was up there. There was half a dozen movies that were all great ones. I'm trying to put you on the right path there, all right, Peter?

Peter Brecht25:42

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Peter Brecht25:59

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yo, you're doing a good job. I hadn't even seen it was Tombstone. Like I had never seen, like who hasn't seen Tombstone? But I hadn't seen Tombstone, so I don't know.

Dylan Morton26:08

Wow.

Wade26:10

Yeah,

Dylan Morton26:12

Like I said, I have friends that are just like you, so I understand. We always give them crap, you know.

Wade26:19

There's gotta be that one in the group,

Peter Brecht26:20

That's all right.

Dylan Morton26:21

Maybe you guys are more productive, like you said, maybe...

Wade26:24

That's right. Read more books.

Peter Brecht26:25

So what are you looking forward to most this year? Obviously you've got family, you've got all these things going on, but is there anything in particular that you're like, man, I'm 2026, it's my year and this is why, or is it kind of just feel like you're still getting into things? Is there anything you're looking forward to in particular?

Dylan Morton (26:42.598).

And, yeah, family is number one always being able to spend time with them, watch my son grow and be with them. But I'm always trying to network really, that's how I got the job I have now and it's opened so many doors for me. And so I love to be involved with all the societies like I said, Tulsa Geological Society, my alumni board at OSU. We're planning for

Peter Brecht27:03

Mm-hmm.

Dylan Morton27:14

In 2027, the AAPG Mid-Continent Sectional Meeting is coming back to Tulsa. So I want you there, Peter. No, I'm just kidding. But it's a pretty fun time, you know? So I love being involved and just hearing what's going on in the industry. Obviously, bettering myself, getting smarter, better at my job.

Peter Brecht27:24

Yeah.

Dylan Morton27:39

But yeah, I love networking. Just like talking to people. I like hearing people's stories. I don't know much about you guys, but I'd love to hear your whole life story. I'm just that kind of guy. And find things in common. Talk about what we've done, what we've been through.

Peter Brecht27:49

Yeah. Yeah.

Wade27:50

I'll tell you, you're very...

Wade27:56

You're very good at networking, because whenever we friended each other whatever on LinkedIn, say what? Is there just a delay?

Peter Brecht27:59

Got a little bit of a lag, I think.

Peter Brecht28:05

Your audio is lagging a little bit. It's okay. We'll just slow down.

Wade28:08

Okay. Well, I was just going to say, you're very good at networking because whenever we connected on LinkedIn, there were like 50 people that we shared in connections with and pretty much every geologist I've ever worked with, you're also friends with. Like Sam Roark and Mark Jensen and John Hill, it's all across the board. Oklahoma City told us it didn't matter.

Peter Brecht28:22

Ha ha ha!

Dylan Morton28:37

Yeah, and that's kind of, I mentioned my father-in-law is a geologist too. So I've met a lot of people through him too and being in Oklahoma City for a couple years while I at Reagan Smith helped too. Yeah. And as you guys know, oil and gas, especially your specific, geologists or engineers, it's such a small world. I mean, everyone knows everyone, which is actually cool in my opinion.

Wade28:43

Mm-hmm.

Wade28:51

Right. Yes.

Peter Brecht28:52

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht29:04

Yeah.

Wade29:07

Right.

Peter Brecht29:07

So when a bunch of geologists, like let's say you go to dinner with a bunch of geologists and you're sitting around a table, what do you guys talk about? Like what are some of these topics? Like to me it would, I mean I would obviously learn a little bit, but I mean like what is just absolute obsession with geology like bring to the table? Like what do you guys talk, I don't know, just bring me into that conversation a little bit.

Dylan Morton29:12

You

Dylan Morton29:31

Rocks. Yeah, at end of the day, the rock, the I have a, I don't think I coined this term, but the stories in the stones, now, what are the new hot place? What geology is making them tick? And that's going back to that post I had on collide. That was kind of my curiosity there. And why I wrote that up was, what's making these work, completions have come a long way since the cruddy wells that they were drilling out there and

Peter Brecht29:33

This is right...

Wade29:42

Hmm.

Dylan Morton30:01

2015, but they're likely getting into some conventional type faces that wasn't discovered then. People are always finding new plays, new rock. And yeah, that's kind of is one of the hot topics I would say that always comes up is, what plays are you working on? What's making them tick? And talk endlessly about those type of things.

Peter Brecht30:26

Are a lot of those conversations like open book or are you like, I'll share this, but I can't tell you that because it's sort of my IP or like, what does that look like?

Dylan Morton30:39

Yes and no. I would say, you you can talk generally about a formation or, an area or, what kind of, depositional environment it is, none of that, top secret. And I haven't been involved with like, super, I haven't talked to anyone like Newburn or like someone that's, really into the Cherokee shale and

Would be tight-lipped about this or that or a new hot flame in a different basin. So whatever we talk about is probably already pretty well known.

Wade31:11

Run.

Peter Brecht31:20

Got you. It's just always fun. Growing up, I got to be in some pretty cool rooms with some pretty great people. Even as a teenager, my dad would take me to business meetings. I'd sit there and get to listen and kind of absorb. He taught me very young, you don't ask questions, you don't talk. You just get to listen. So was always fun hearing what people would talk about.

Dylan Morton31:32

Yeah.

Peter Brecht31:44

I think you can learn a lot by a group of people just by listening to the questions they ask and what they're willing to say and what they're not willing to, like there's a lot going on there, which is cool. But it sounds like the more that you're talking to people, the more you share, the more everyone learns, it gets to go do something, right? So it's cool. Awesome. Well, we're coming up on our 30 minute mark here and I just want to say thank you for coming on and for being with us today, but.

Dylan Morton31:51

Yeah.

Peter Brecht32:12

Give us a hand off. Should people find you and where can we connect?

Dylan Morton32:17

Yeah, you can find me at Collide. I'm sporting my hoodie. My big oil hoodie. Hey, man, do you guys have one of these? They are excellent quality. I will tell you that much. But Collide, all LinkedIn. Yeah, basically those two. Always on LinkedIn. I went and snooped around and found both you guys on there.

Peter Brecht32:20

Yeah, you are. You're big oil. Yeah.

They are, they're so comfortable. Yeah, they're comfortable.

Peter Brecht32:35

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, perfect. Yeah. No, those big ones. We got to get you one. But here's the thing. So I wore mine last night. We went out to dinner. My kids, when they like. Yeah, but what went out last night for dinner, my kids, like every month I say, hey, if we have good, good, good, good, three and six, so they're younger, but we teach them, good table manners. And our whole thing is like, hey, you got good manners, every month we're going to go out to dinner. Right. And it's kind of a fun thing for them. We went out and got hamburgers and I wore my big oil sweat.

Wade32:46

I gotta post more, yeah, okay.

Peter Brecht33:09

Sweatshirt and I'm down downtown Lucadia, which is like probably one of the most like hippie towns in California, right? Right there on the coast. And my wife, I get out of the truck and my wife's like, I didn't realize you were wearing that sweater, but you're going to get killed. And I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, first of all, I said no, because no one down here is actually going to try to do anything. I said running into me is like hitting a brick wall.

Dylan Morton33:26

You

Peter Brecht33:36

And the second thing is no one down there, might yell at me from like across the street, but no one's going to get in my face or do anything. It's just, it's, but it's my favorite swear to wear. I love wearing it down here. It's kind of fun. It's edgy. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Morton33:43

That's it.

Dylan Morton33:46

Yeah, I get comments here in Tulsa too whenever I like to wear it out too. My life will admit the same and it's kind of fun to get the comments honestly but...

Peter Brecht33:58

Yeah, I like having those discussions, right? Constantly like, like going back and it sounds like I'm on Instagram all the time, but people post here about like how like, oil and sable offshore, like it shouldn't be here and stuff. And I love going to the comments and like asking people like, Hey, look, I want to have a balanced conversation, right? So who should I be talking to? Who I'm not just listening to one, one channel. I want to actually talk to people that disagree with me. Right. And so far, no one's, no one's had a good answer. No one could give me anyone by name.

Dylan Morton34:24

Yeah.

Peter Brecht34:28

That wants to talk with me so anyways you come across them let me know but Dylan it's been yeah

Dylan Morton34:32

Yeah, well, I was trying to think we were one thing we were in whenever we went to California to New Year's ago and the name of the city is escaping me. It's a. It has all the oil wells on the coast right there.

Peter Brecht34:42

Yeah.

Peter Brecht34:49

Is it, is it, is it? Yeah. Ventura, Santa Barbara, there's several of them. Carpinteria up there, yeah.

Dylan Morton34:59

I can't remember. It's gonna bug me now.

Peter Brecht35:02

That's alright. We lost weight, think his battery overheated, but we can look it up.

Dylan Morton35:07

Yeah, he... I'm looking real quick.

Peter Brecht35:15

Huntington Beach? All right, that's a big one. Yeah, that's just 45 minutes north of me.

Dylan Morton35:17

Huntington Beach, thank you. Goodness.

Yeah, so I mean, there was like oil wells in people's backyards pumping. It seemed like, we went out to the strip, the bars on New Year's and like, everyone was honestly like, very conservative. It was kind of shocking, when not just conservative, just like, they seemed like they were not against oil and gas, which I don't really care, but it was just like,

Peter Brecht35:28

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Brecht35:41

Yeah.

Peter Brecht35:50

Yeah.

Dylan Morton35:51

Seeing that in California was kind of shocking to me.

Peter Brecht35:54

Yeah, well, I just learned this from an interview we did a couple weeks ago, but Chevron actually like owns Huntington Beach. I mean, it's like mostly, yeah, it's like, it's very, obviously there's houses and stuff there, but a lot of what happened in Huntington Beach was because of Chevron. And so a lot of rich history there. And one of my favorite pictures that I have, I've posted it before, but is off of Huntington Beach. It's...

Dylan Morton36:03

Really?

Peter Brecht36:20

It's a great surf shot. It's got the in the background. You got the oil rigs and it's just it's really cool So I don't know. I really I love it up there. It's a cool place and it's just pan like you want a house to start at 2 million so it's like whoo. It's hot. But anyways Dylan it's been amazing having you I'm just so thankful that you were able to set the time aside and just and be here and to talk to me in way But we'll see you on LinkedIn. See you on collide and for everyone else. Thank you for listening to local energy

Dylan Morton36:25

Mm-hmm.

Dylan Morton36:33

Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Brecht36:50

We'll see you next week.

All right.